In recent years, demand has increased for building a liquid crystal panel in a portable electronic device and therefore reduced power consumption of the liquid crystal panel has been highly desired. In a liquid crystal drive apparatus for driving the liquid crystal panel, the power consumption can be effectively reduced by the power save operation in which the output circuit is stopped and the steady current is reduced to zero during the blanking period when no image is displayed. Further, in order to promote the reduction in power consumption, the power save operation is desirably performed frequently.
In performing the power save operation for the liquid crystal drive apparatus, the operation mode is required to be restored quickly from the power save mode. In the conventional liquid crystal drive apparatus, however, the bias potential cannot yet be restored at a sufficiently high rate of speed. This problem is significantly recognized in terms of the bias potential generating apparatus which is one of the circuit devices forming the liquid crystal drive apparatus.